hutcheson - 1:39 pm on Oct 4, 2007 (gmt 0)

>Does DMOZ seek to have an authoritative email address confirm that the inclusion request was an authorized act?

There are no inclusion requests, and there are no authorized acts.

It's all "suggest you review this site". And the site's creator or beneficial owner has no more right to make suggestions than anyone else on earth. In fact, if it were at all possible, we'd weight a suggestion from an independent surfer higher than a suggestion from someone related to the site. (But that's really not possible.)

>...How does DMOZ assure that any "bad behaviour" is actually being initiated "by the applicant" and not some other fool? What steps does DMOZ take to assure they are dealing with the real party in interest?

As you know, you can't tell which anonymous fool you're dealing with online. So you deal with patterns of bad behavior (whether they're characteristic of one fool, or common to a class of fools.) And you'd be amazed at what patterns people spot. It's like the burglar who always carefully wears gloves when breaking into houses to avoid leaving fingerprints, but always carries the same odd-shaped crowbar. Or always wears the same shoes. Or always takes the bus to the victimized neighborhood. Or whatever. No two criminals make the same stupid mistakes, but nearly all of them make some stupid mistake. And the police just gather evidence and look for patterns. How else could it be?